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Still: The sea is a notoriously hostile environment for great apes such as us. The sky is notoriously unattainable (we fly since, what, 2 centuries?) Everywh

Still: The sea is a notoriously hostile environment for great apes such as us. The sky is notoriously unattainable (we fly since, what, 2 centuries?) Everywhere else, Blue is pretty uncommon On average, the wilderness is mostly shades of brown and green. And what is blue tend to be pretty intense: flowers and venomous animals, mostly. That said, I've read around here that colours are mostly a cultural thing (except maybe red). So I'd wouldn't put too much into it. The interesting parts come later in the article anyway: how UI design could take inspiration from sci-fi, including its mistakes.

madaxe_again 11y ago
Blue is very common. Human perception of it is just poor, as with so many blue photons about you don't need to detect them as efficiently as say red or green. This is why blue neon signs are illegible at night.
- ChristianBundy 11y ago
  For the curious: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_vision#/media/File:Eyesensitivity.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_vision#/media/File:Eyese...
- wlesieutre 11y ago
  Though in very low light (such as moonlight), all three types of cones are equally useless and you'll change from photopic vision [1] to scotopic vision [2]. In that case, your eyes will be more sensitive to blues than they are to reds, but you can't discriminate between colors at all. For the scenario of a neon sign at night, you're probably in the mesopic vision [3] range, which is a somewhat fuzzy mix of the two. If they're all putting out an even number of photons, the blue sign would still not be as visible. An interesting real-world experience I had with this: I was driving at night and saw the indicator LED on my phone flashing blue out of the corner of my eye. When I stopped and checked it, it turned out that it was actually yellow. Even when something's bright enough to trigger a color response in the center of your vision, it may be a primarily cone response toward the outside of your vision, which is strongly dominated by rod cells [4]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photopic_vision https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photopic_vision [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotopic_vision https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotopic_vision [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesopic_vision https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesopic_vision [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photoreceptor_cell#/media/File:Human_photoreceptor_distribution.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photoreceptor_cell#/media/File...
  - maffydub 11y ago
    "I was driving at night and saw the indicator LED on my phone flashing blue out of the corner of my eye. When I stopped and checked it, it turned out that it was actually yellow." I quite often have a similar experience... I always put my phone on my desk just below my monitor - just at the edge of my field-of-view. My phone has an LED that flashes green when I have an SMS and red when I have a missed call or low battery (both with the same cadence). If I'm focussed on the monitor, I can see the light flashing but until I look at it, it appears to be flashing white (presumably because I have very few cones at the edge of my field-of-view). Even more interestingly, once I have looked at it, determined whether it's red or green, and then return my eyes to looking at the monitor, I can still see it flashing at the edge of my field-of-view, but now my brain fills in which color it is - I now see it flashing red or green (despite there still being no cones to detect this). I think it's amazing how of my perception of the world is actually filled in by my brain rather than "raw data".

madaxe_again 11y ago

Blue is very common. Human perception of it is just poor, as with so many blue photons about you don't need to detect them as efficiently as say red or green. This is why blue neon signs are illegible at night.

ChristianBundy 11y ago
For the curious: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_vision#/media/File:Eyesensitivity.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_vision#/media/File:Eyese...
wlesieutre 11y ago
Though in very low light (such as moonlight), all three types of cones are equally useless and you'll change from photopic vision [1] to scotopic vision [2]. In that case, your eyes will be more sensitive to blues than they are to reds, but you can't discriminate between colors at all. For the scenario of a neon sign at night, you're probably in the mesopic vision [3] range, which is a somewhat fuzzy mix of the two. If they're all putting out an even number of photons, the blue sign would still not be as visible. An interesting real-world experience I had with this: I was driving at night and saw the indicator LED on my phone flashing blue out of the corner of my eye. When I stopped and checked it, it turned out that it was actually yellow. Even when something's bright enough to trigger a color response in the center of your vision, it may be a primarily cone response toward the outside of your vision, which is strongly dominated by rod cells [4]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photopic_vision https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photopic_vision [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotopic_vision https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotopic_vision [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesopic_vision https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesopic_vision [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photoreceptor_cell#/media/File:Human_photoreceptor_distribution.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photoreceptor_cell#/media/File...
- maffydub 11y ago
  "I was driving at night and saw the indicator LED on my phone flashing blue out of the corner of my eye. When I stopped and checked it, it turned out that it was actually yellow." I quite often have a similar experience... I always put my phone on my desk just below my monitor - just at the edge of my field-of-view. My phone has an LED that flashes green when I have an SMS and red when I have a missed call or low battery (both with the same cadence). If I'm focussed on the monitor, I can see the light flashing but until I look at it, it appears to be flashing white (presumably because I have very few cones at the edge of my field-of-view). Even more interestingly, once I have looked at it, determined whether it's red or green, and then return my eyes to looking at the monitor, I can still see it flashing at the edge of my field-of-view, but now my brain fills in which color it is - I now see it flashing red or green (despite there still being no cones to detect this). I think it's amazing how of my perception of the world is actually filled in by my brain rather than "raw data".